Catching a Second Wind
by Chustang
Summary: *A story I wrote long ago, so I have been working on Starwind and Hawking* It's basically my version of Gene and Jim's encounter. Enjoy chibis!


Catching a Second Wind Catching a Second Wind   
by Chustang Sundust   
  


The echo from the gates slamming shut seemed to last forever, rubbing   
the cruel facts into his face. Sunlight was not helping his situation,   
either, even though it was a beautiful morning. Yeah, the teen who stood   
outside the tall steel fence thought to himself bitter sweetly.   
Beautiful day to be exiled from the only place I was even semi-welcome.   
He betrayed no regret on his face and his steel blue eyes were as steely   
as their color. After all, he had wanted to get out of army camp like a   
dog out of a kennel, and now, standing at the butt of the rebuke, out in   
the cold April wind, he felt like he should of been happy.   
But why aren't I?   
His uncertain, bittersweet gaze matched the raggedness of his   
jagged-cut, rust red hair, and he shoved his hands into his pockets   
before turning and walking away. 

The warm rain soon became more than just a relief from the bitter play   
of the wind, but the closest thing to a shower he would see in weeks.   
The sky had clouded up just in time to set the mood for his train of   
thought, and it cut streaks down his dirt-smeared face. The streets of   
Sentinel III were misted over with a ghostly silver haze, giving the   
headlights of the cars a strange tone as they cut past in the rain. None   
of the people gave a second glance to the army camp outcast who wore   
camouflage cargoes, a white tank, and slowly rusting dog tags.   
He lifted his head slightly, running his fingers through short red   
hair, and brushed away the rain from his face. The lanky teenager who   
had only fifteen years under his belt felt it loosely rock on his hips   
as he walked, which meant he was missing the slop the drill sergeants   
claimed to be food. With hungry puppy eyes, he rubbed his stomach and   
tried to console its starving rumble.   
"Perfect little world, perfect little crappy world...." he mumbled to   
himself, as he shoved his hands even deeper into the large pockets once   
more. The redhead's temper began to shine through, as fiery red as his   
hair, and he was soon preoccupying it with the angry kicking of the   
nearest can. With each jolt, it clanked noisily down the street, and he   
gave the aluminum the short version of his opinion of his mournful life.   
"Why is my crappy little world always smashing the dirt from the bottom   
in my face while I'm looking for my notch at the top? Oh, I know!"   
*Smash!* "I know exactly why! I'm so young and healthy, it's just great   
that I have nothing good like a warm bed -" *Smash!* "-or a meal on any   
sort of table-" *Smash!* "-or a home!" *Smash!*   
In the rain, the clattering of the can was drown out by the metallic   
pounding of the water on its collapsed and smashed in surface as it   
rolled to a final stop. His face was twisted up in a furious frown, and   
he gave one last spit of cynicism he had left in him.   
"Or... a family."   
He flinched suddenly, feeling a cold spray drench him as a car zoomed   
by. It was an old model, one of the first hover cars to be fashioned,   
and the shiny red hull only hid its imperfection. The engine fueling it   
was roaring uneasily from its years of service, and barely holding   
itself together when it dipped suddenly, sliding into a puddle, and   
projected a shield of water against him. He stood, in a frustrated   
grumble of incoherent words, for a few seconds and tried to hold down   
his temper before he erupted. The teen's lips slurred over angry cuss   
words, and he ripped the rusted dog tags from his neck and tossed them   
at the passing classic car. The car and its passengers apparently took   
no heed of the deplorable kid, standing drenched, sickened, and starving   
in the warm but relentless rain. And the dog tags, bearing the now   
hollow name of Gene Adrianite Starwind, rolled into the storm gutter.   
Casting stormy blue-gray eyes down at them, he just spat the dirty   
water from his lips and mouth and snorted. "Figures. Everything else has   
to go down the gutter, so why not my only i.d.?"   
He had had enough. He kept walking.   
Meanwhile, a pair of hands pressed edgily against the glass of the   
hover car as a pair of sympathetic marble blue eyes followed the man   
standing in the rain, until the figure faded back into the mist. The   
face of a curious six year old watched him hang his head, and the kid   
felt a knot ball up in his stomach. He blinked, carefully taking his   
hands from the glass, and turned toward his oblivious parents.   
"Mommy, Dad?" he asked tentatively, genuinely concerned face framed by   
a tossed head of blonde hair. The kid strained against his seat belt to   
wrap his fingers around the headrest of the driver's seat.   
"Yes, honey?" came the sweet and nightingale voice of the white blonde   
woman. She turned her large green eyes toward her son and saw the   
concern he held.   
"I saw a guy in the streets back there," he cautiously said, glancing   
back over his shoulder.   
The man who was driving turned his head slightly to see his son, and   
looking through the long locks of golden blonde hair, gave a smile.   
"Yeah champ? What's the matter with that?"   
The blonde kid flinched at this, struck with a strange blast of   
coldness to others he'd never experienced with his parents. Even though   
he was merely six, the bloodlines of a prodigy shone bright in him, and   
he understood the disregard-concealing tone to his father's voice. They   
didn't care. How couldn't they? "Well," he said, "he was wearing army   
clothes, wasn't he?"   
His mother lifted a finger to her lip, thinking. "Come to think of it,   
yeah. He did have dog tags around his neck. That's strange though. The   
nearest army camp must be at least twenty miles from here."   
"Mommy, he doesn't look like he has a place to go," the child warned,   
still giving the empty mist a concerned flurry of glances. "Shouldn't we   
go back and help him or something? I mean, we have an extra room and he   
could-"   
"James! What are you thinking?" came the instant scold he was   
expecting, but dreading. Her green eyes were filled with confusion and   
surprise. "I'm sorry, but we can't just go picking people off the   
streets! You don't understand what kind of people there are out there!"   
"Mom!"   
"No! I will not tolerate anymore of this, Jim!"   
He flashed sad blue eyes at her stony-hard face, but seeing no reaction   
to show her softening, he turned them to the window. They sped on down   
the street, as their son watched the silver-blue mist. He heard her sigh   
with exasperation, and his father give a secretive smile at his son's   
compassion. 

He could feel a pressure that was alien to him, as he scraped the   
change from his pockets, with the pretty, blonde-haired bar girl   
watching him. She watched him with warm blue eyes, and a smile came to   
her lips as she watched the handsome army recruit give a sheepish grin   
as he pulled the bare change and pound notes from his pocket. She was   
impressed by his brilliant red hair and the way his steel-blue eyes   
seemed to be alive with a youth that would last forever.   
The coins clattered noisily on the counter, and he dropped a pound note   
onto the pile to finish off the bill. Smiling, he brushed the spiky   
locks of red hair away from his forehead, then took his bacon cheese   
burger and wild cherry shake. The slim teen nodded to her, and turned to   
walk causally, with his jaunty stride, toward the door.   
The girl smiled, leaning against the counter, and watched him leave.   
Iris then turned to work again. 

Gene tried his most to make the burger last, but the incessant burning   
in his stomach was too much to resist, and he finished quickly before he   
made down the street. So, licking the grease off his lanky fingers, he   
lazily enjoyed his shake, as not to get a brain freeze. The night air   
was crisp with the reminiscences of rain, lying thick along the winds   
like a misty accent.   
He was still wet, but apparently, the wet clothes had made quite a   
first impression on the people on the street, so he gave an amused   
smile. The redhead had at least spread a reputation, and that was the   
only upside to his current life. The outlawed, fifteen year old orphan   
looked up suddenly as the drone of a radio on the street caught his   
attention, in the open display of a t.v. shop, and Gene paused to   
listen. It was an old radio, antique almost.   
The redhead stopped to listen and shoved his hands into his pockets   
after throwing away the shake. Overhead, the flinty gray skies were   
darkening with nightfall, and the faint light of stars shone in the gaps   
of the clouds. There was a content grin on his face, and the frivolous   
light of his childish spirit was undaunted in his blue eyes. For once,   
all his cares faded away, listening to the unfamiliar song but still   
feeling the carefree spark it had.   
"We interrupt this radio station for a news flash..."   
Gene groaned, rolling his eyes.   
"There has been a massive, ten car crash on the corner of Blackberry   
Avenue and West Afton Drive, in Locust. The crash occurred at 6:42, just   
fifteen minutes ago. By now, they have declared seven dead, and ten more   
severly injured. They are not expected to survive. The crash was   
believed to be caused by a pirate bomb that set off and destoryed the   
streetlights. There has even been a child reported missing by   
authorities. That child has been confirmed as the son of the infamous   
'Computer Wizard', and is currently being searched for by the police.   
The search will be continued for three more days, then if the child is   
not found, it will be called off. In other news..."   
Gene glanced down the streets of Locust, to see the crash himself. In   
the air, the smoke and exhaust cloud hanging heavily over where   
Blackberry and West Afton meet carried a smell of burning steel, ashes,   
and smoke. At the acid burning of his nose, the redhead snorted and   
wrinkled his face in disgust. It was almost tragic, remembering the kid.   
Maybe his parents had been killed too... then at least he wouldn't be   
the only orphan in this city.   
The lean teenager rubbed his chin with his fingers, then felt his rough   
face growing back. Gene suddenly realized just how much he was   
unplanned. He had no clothes, no home, no friends or allies in all of   
Sentinel, and was living on the expel money he got for working in the   
army camp. After landing on Sentinel in an escape pod from his   
murdered-father's ship three years ago, he had been adopted into the   
recruits, and worked there as specialized soldier. But he'd never   
enjoyed it much; he had too much free will.   
Gene Starwind stuffed his hands into the depths of his pocket,   
searching for the money stored there. Drawing a few bills out to see   
them, the dimming light gleaming through the silver clouds showed they   
were pound notes, not wong. He'd have to get it exchanged if he was to   
buy anything big, but feeling the familiar currency of his home made him   
forget he'd left a dying bloodline in Great Britain back on Earth, and   
remembered sitting the back country moors with his mom as a kid. He had   
no family here, and the Starwind family would die on Earth.   
His dark eyes began to scan the slick streets, piercing into the haze   
to see the signs. They flickered downward temporarily to count the money   
he had. Once counted, it added up to be two hundred and fifty-three   
pounds. Gene ran it swiftly through his rust red hair, and he mumbled to   
himself, "So... I guess that's about... hmm, five hundred wong."   
Satisfied, he rubbed the paper between his fingers, then placed it   
safely in his cargoes. It was time he made himself at home. 

Sleep that night was riddled with thick, hot humidity, in a small, dark   
four roomed apartment on the slum like Montgomery Street. The the storm   
clouds had drifted back together in a sticky air and thunder clashed   
together, making the sky seem like gigantic stones cracking against each   
other. Lightning pierced darkness was flaring in the empty shell of a   
home, and the only couch that existed there was slumping with the weight   
it had to hold. Lying in only jeans, the redhead outlaw shifted   
restlessly on the sweaty, coarse material, kicking the thin blanket off   
to the floor.   
Gene shifted until he lay on his back, folding his arms behind his   
neck, knowing that sleep was impossible, and stared up at the cracked   
ceiling with cold blue eyes. His tan face was slick and glistening with   
sweat, and it was futile to wipe it off, because it was too hot to keep   
comfortable. He had a bag of clothes and supplies at the foot of the   
sagging couch.   
He just looked around, at his ragged new beginning around him. Then,   
tired and void of what to think, he settled down, and pulled a pillow   
over his eyes.   
It took more than an hour of hot tossing and turning, for sleep to   
finally find him, with his feet dangling over the edge, and sprawled   
limply out on his side. Youthful face twisted up in discomfort and   
uncertain dreams, Gene accepted the nearly restless sleep that was   
offered tonight, and tried to unwind as much as possible.   
It couldn't have been harder if he had been resting on a bed of nails.   
Dreaming that night, was like sleeping on a bed of nails, outside, in   
the thunderstorm. Again, he was at the moor, with his mother drawing him   
to her shoulder one afternoon, with a sleepy, dull gold sun gleaming. He   
smiled up at her, and she flickered her own gray eyes toward him, giving   
a wide grin.   
But across the moor, it came again. The moan. The eerie echo of the   
howl. There hadn't been wolves in the United Kingdom for fifty years,   
and this wasn't right. Tossing in a thick sweat, he began to moan   
incoherently, and he saw it again. The rabid beast that haunted him for   
years and years, and now it was coming again; the mangy, gray thing that   
came slowly at first, stiff-legged and snarling insanely, then a   
whirlwind of speed that descended like a demon.   
Not at him. Always not at him. The foam-mouthed wolf always skidded to   
a halt just a few inches away from his face, but it lunged away, at his   
mother. It never paused to look at him. And if it had, she might have   
lived.   
And he cried.   
He could hear the crying.   
Gene bolted up, in a drenched bed of sweat. His eyes darted wildly in   
unbridled fear, and the maniacal ice blue eyes of his mother's killer   
seemed to jump out at him. There was a gleam of blue eyes in the   
darkness, and the outlaw gave a scream, unsure of just what was staring   
at him. The pair of eyes narrowed, bright and eerie, and there was a   
rustling of a body at the side of the couch.   
"Aaaahhhh!" he shrieked, leaping up onto the top of the couch, and   
clawing to get away in terror.   
There was a returning scream of surprise, shrill and childish, from the   
short figure beside the make-shift bed which sprung backward in the   
night. They both paused, realizing they were both afraid of a monster   
they thought was each other. Two pairs of blue eyes blinked in unison,   
and locked gazes tentatively. Tense silence ensued, and Gene was panting   
heavily, as he gulped his hard breath down, and slid back onto the   
couch. In the darkness, he leaned over, and was met with red-ringed   
eyes.   
It was... a kid?!   
In the black, he could make out the face of a kid barely six or seven.   
The face itself was pale, weak, and horribly cut. Lines of bloody cuts   
were a bright crimson all along his face, and as Gene reached out to the   
kid, he cringed and withdrew deeply from him. Yet those haunting blue   
eyes never wavered from him, like marbles held up to a candle, and he   
lipped something deliriously. It sounded something like, "Hairy bear on   
sandy shore..." But that couldn't be right.   
"What?" he asked, sitting up on the couch. "You okay, kid?"   
The fragile thing shuddered in the heat, and the strained nod he gave   
was barely noticeable in his dizzy swooning. He closed his eyes, and   
soon bundled up in a vulnerable position, murmuring in an obsessive   
sobbing frenzy. The kid clutched at his temples through his disheveled   
hair, salty tears stinging bitterly on his wounds.   
Gene instantly felt a throb of heartbreak coming on, seeing such a   
pitiful display of disrupted life in those fearful blue eyes. The   
redhead shifted his eyes around the lifeless black apartment, with a   
vice of pressure slowly squeezing him. He wanted so much to help this   
disturbed bundle of skin, bones, and hair, but there wasn't a single   
drop of parental comfort he could find in himself. Biting his lip, he   
looked back down, unsure.   
"Hey, hey, calm down!" he whispered, as the sobbing evolved into   
dejected shrieking, and Gene put a hand on the shivering head. The kid   
continued to wail slurred words over and over again, slowly becoming   
clearer. Steel-blue eyes concerned, the outlaw rubbed his hand against   
his head, and suddenly felt a throbbing concussion beneath the golden   
blonde hair. Gene kneeled down beside the kid, and he parted the hair to   
see as best he could just how severe this kid had been jolted.   
As he leaned over, the shuddering, thin body flung himself around the   
redhead's waist and tightly hugged his now tensing chest. Now, murmuring   
loudly, it was becoming clear just what the garbled wails meant. "They   
ain't there anymore.... they're gone, Mommy and Daddy are gone!"   
It was like punching him in the face with a ton of bricks. The slurred   
words were a harsh blow to his guts, and Gene went stiff with surprise.   
His blue eyes swirled with a whirlwind of lukewarm emotions that rode on   
the fine edge of bewilderment. This kid.... must be the one from the   
crash! Yet the blue eyes crying for a lost family were disturbing   
familiar - a mirror image almost. The concussion would probably make him   
forget everything that had happened. This proved useful, though. That   
way he could.... well, lie to make the kid feel better about losing   
parents. Yeah, that would do fine.   
Gene sighed, because the small body was clearly not going to let go   
anytime soon, and lifted the kid up to his shoulder as he stood up. The   
kid rested his head on the outlaw's shoulder, and was instantly asleep.   
The redhead was overwhelmed by a heartfelt smile, tinted with a jagged   
sadness, and decisided to go back to sleep.   
He could settle it in the morning. Right now, though, he had an orphan   
to take care of.   


End   


************   
Author's Notes:   
Okay, I know I'm going to get hammered for doing this instead of   
working on my other stories, but I wrote this at my grandma's and   
couldn't work on my computer. Anyway, I had to write my version of how   
Gene and Jim met sometime. This is for my best best best best friend   
times a million, Cherie. We both luv Jimmy! 

Chustang   
  



End file.
